Editorial | Of the pope and Black Friday

Today, a day with the nickname of Black Friday, so dubbed originally because of all the mess and havoc it created for the law and order types, consumers are expected to contribute greatly to the projected $602.1 billion in holiday spending this and next month. According to The Christian Science Monitor, which also provided the explanation for the day’s moniker in a nifty, online quiz, that amount exceeds the gross domestic product of Poland ... for a year. And it’s a cool — make that hot — 3.9 percent increase over what shoppers popped for last year.

So everything’s hunky-dory, right?

Maybe, maybe not.

The shopping spree may be great news for the economy, but at least one person is asking the rest of us big spenders to think about a bigger picture, one that eclipses dollars and cents and hopping markets. We’re talking territory of the soul.

It’s Francis, of course, the new pope who keeps making news by making waves. This time, the headlines came from the 84-page “exhortation” — what amounts to his papal platform — he issued three days shy of Black Friday.

The pope who lives a guest house on Vatican grounds and tools around in a Ford Focus addressed many topics in the document, but with the holidays upon us and the glut of purchase-oriented activities now, his comments about capitalism, money and inequality (income and otherwise) have drawn the most immediate attention.

Given the day, the fact that more than 46 million Americans (15 percent) are in poverty, the sad stories we’ll undoubtedly hear of some ugly brawls over today’s bargains, leaving Poland in the dust with our Black Friday wallet action, and the pope’s counter-intuitive message in light of all that, it’s worth visiting some of what is in his “Evangelii Gaudium” or “The Joy of the Gospel.” Some excerpts worth pondering:

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“While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few. This imbalance is the result of ideologies which defend the absolute autonomy of the marketplace and financial speculation ... A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.”

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“In this system, which tends to devour everything which stands in the way of increased profits, whatever is fragile, like the environment, is defenseless before the interests of a deified market, which become the only rule.”

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“Ethics has come to be viewed with a certain scornful derision. It is seen as counterproductive, too human, because it makes money and power relative. It is felt to be a threat, since it condemns the manipulation and debasement of the person ... Ethics — a non-ideological ethics — would make it possible to bring about balance and a more humane social order. With this in mind, I encourage financial experts and political leaders to ponder the words of one of the sages of antiquity: ‘Not to share one’s wealth with the poor is to steal from them and to take away their livelihood. It is not our own good which we hold, but theirs.’ ”

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“Just as the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ sets a clear limit in order to safeguard the value of human life, today we also have to say ‘thou shalt not’ to an economy of exclusion and inequality. Such an economy kills. How can it be that it is not a news item when an elderly homeless person dies of exposure, but it is news when the stock market loses two points?”

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“The culture of prosperity deadens us; we are thrilled if the market offers us something new to purchase; and in the meantime all those lives stunted for lack of opportunity seem a mere spectacle; they fail to move us.”

Deep reading for any day, but especially meaningful on a day that highlights capital. Technology enables bargain-hunters to read the pope’s message while they wait to cash out.